When the golf course construction boom began to hit the Myrtle Beach area of South Carolina in the 1980s, no one was in a better position than Dan Maples. Of the 19 courses built on the Grand Strand in the decade, Maples created eight of them.

Dan Maples grew up playing golf at Pinehurst and working for his dad in the summers. He designed his first course at age 6 and was driving tractors before he received his driver's license.

Beginning at Wingate (N.C.) College he studied data processing and accounting. But when he moved to Georgia for his final two years of college, he pursued landscape architecture and soon after his graduation in 1972 joined his dad's firm.

Maples and his father created 17 golf courses together. Their best might be Grandfather Mountain in western North Carolina. They also designed two of the top resort courses in Virginia: Ford's Colony in Williamsburg and Devil's Knob in the Blue Ridge Mountains.

One of Dan Maples' first solo efforts was Oyster Bay in Sunset Hills, NC It was named the new resort course of the year by Golf Digest in 1983 and helped catapult Maples to much business on the Grand Strand. Maples' Grand Strand designs stand out for their routing through wetlands, as do his large, uniquely shaped greens. Overall, Maples designs courses that demand accuracy over length, with everything in plain sight.